AuthorTopic: Wireless problems Acer Aspire, RTL8180 (Read 3718 times)

Am trying to get an Acer Aspire 1355LCi wireless working under VL SOHO 5.9 with no luck so far. The wireless chip is an RTL8180, which apparentlyworks good with ndiswrapper, and that is what I am using.

I have set ndiswrapper to wlan0. iwconfig wlan0 scan shows the 2 wireless networks just fine. ifconfig wlan0 up brings up the interface just fine after I set all the correct wireless essid, key etc., but dhcpcd fails every time (even using wifi-radar or vlwifi). I have tried setting a fixed IP address anda fixed route and it makes no difference. Any assistance greatly appreciated.

Larry

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"As people become more intelligent they care less for preachers and more for teachers". Robert G. Ingersoll

Thanks for your help bigpaws. I tried to compile that 8180 open source driver without success. However, I don't think the driver is the problem because my research shows ndiswrappers seems to work for everyone - as far as I can tell. I have also blacklisted your suggestions, to no avail.

So I am bumping this thread with some more data. It appears that most of the wireless system works except getting a dhcp IP address. So I need some help. Here is the wireless info:

- wireless chip is RTL8180 and I'm using ndiswrapper, which apparently works for everyone with this chip- "lsmod" shows ndiswrapper is loaded and "ndiswrapper -l" shows the correct driver has been loaded- wlan0 comes up fine, shows the correct MAC address for the wireless chip- "iwlist wlan0 scan" shows me the local wireless networks including mine, so the receiver is working great- "iwconfig wlan0 myparameters" works fine. I have turned off encryption on my wireless network just to ensure that was not an issue. It's not!- my router log shows the wireless transmitter seems to work as it shows that MAC address connected to the network.- "dhcpcd wlan0" always FAILS!! This occurs at whatever open network I try to connect to, not just my own home network and router.- /var/log/dhcpcd.log shows discover signal sent, but fails to connect after 20 seconds, every time, every network.- when dhcpcd stops after failing to connect wlan0 has been brought down by dhcpcd.

I don't have any sort of software firewall that could be messing things up and I cannot seem to figure out where to go to next in my troubleshooting.

Any ideas/help greatly appreciated.

Larry

« Last Edit: December 09, 2008, 01:20:43 pm by lagagnon »

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"As people become more intelligent they care less for preachers and more for teachers". Robert G. Ingersoll

I'm sure you've tried anything I could come up with, but just in case I came across this page (http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Dhcpcd#Common_Issues). Perhaps trying some of the 'common issues' suggestions would prove fruitful. Also, take a look at the distribution specific information.

OK, I have finally solved "part" of my wireless issue from 3 days ago - I can now connect to one of my wireless routers upstairs (the problem ended up being not having channel set right). The downstairs wireless router worked (as set up below) with another device but not my notebook. The downstairs router is piggybacked onto a LAN port on the upstairs router - here is the topology:

What fails is trying to get dhcp through the downstairs router. It should pick up DHCP from the upstairs router but is not. What should the "iwconfig" statement look like or should I set up the downstairs router differently?

Any help greatly appreciated.

Larry

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"As people become more intelligent they care less for preachers and more for teachers". Robert G. Ingersoll

Wow, finally, after 5 days or more, figured this out. My downstairs router had a firewall rule to deny Pings from the WAN side (something usually done when using WEP so that war-drivers can't run a ping-fest to discover the key). This ping firewall, with this laptop was disabling the DHCP process (somehow) from the upstairs router. All working now.

Still would like to disable other machine ping access - will figure that out via a good read of my router's manual.

Thanks to all the help I eventually realized my problem. Cheers...

Larry

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"As people become more intelligent they care less for preachers and more for teachers". Robert G. Ingersoll